109
The Advent of Agile
“wrong.” As we have seen, all methods involve the development of behav-
ioral, systems, operational, etc., models of some type.
Extreme Programming (XP)
Although not the first of the Agile (lightweight) methods, Extreme Pro-
gramming, usually known simply by its splendidly chosen acronym “XP,” is
arguably the most well known of the Agile approaches. Initially popularized
by Kent Beck in his book Extreme Programming Explained,* XP takes a min-
imalist approach, and has been shown to be effective, particularly on
smaller teams. Detractors of Agile methods sometimes point to issues of
scalability in the use of these approaches. They have a point, but it may be
overplayed. Arguably all methods and models work “better” in the small. ...